Texas Insight’s Recent Reports
- HHSC: Behavioral Health Advisory Committee: The Committee met to receive updates on a number of issues including the Opioid Response Grant, Community Collaboratives, the results of S.B. 1155, and the behavioral health budget overview.
- HHSC: Drug Utilization Review Board: The Drug Utilization Review Board develops and submits recommendations for the preferred drug list, suggests clinical prior authorizations on outpatient prescription drugs, recommends education interventions for Medicaid providers and reviews drug usage across Medicaid programs.
- House Select Committee on Opioids and Substance Abuse: Part I: The Select Committee met to consider testimony on the following interim charge: Monitor and evaluate the implementation of legislation passed by the 85th Legislature regarding the Prescription Monitoring Program. In addition, review the prescribing of addictive drugs by physicians and other health care providers within various geographic regions of this state. Determine the role of health care professionals in preventing overutilization and diversion of addictive prescriptions. Provide recommendations that will improve efforts to prevent overutilization and diversion of addictive prescriptions.
- Opioid Policy Update: This posting summarizes policy solutions being offered to address the opioid crisis. The American Public Health Association recommends that policy strategies addressing the epidemic must affect both supply and demand of opioids that would be misused and/or abused.
Looking Ahead
June 5, 2018: Texas Council on Consumer Direction
State and Federal Healthcare News
Texas
- Texas must reveal where it got execution drugs, the Texas Supreme Court affirms
- Dallas County staffers’ incompetence hurt HIV/AIDS program, feds say
- Cancer Group Calls for Colorectal Cancer Screening Starting at Age 45
- Greg Abbott announces school safety plan and proposed changes to gun laws after Santa Fe shooting
- Twice a week, these Texas students circle up and talk about their feelings. It’s lowering suspensions and preventing violence.
- Cameras On Preemies Let In Families, Keep Germs Out
- Report: S.A. has improved public health policies
U.S.
- Good News for Women With Breast Cancer: Many Don’t Need Chemo
- Why are the Death Tolls in Puerto Rico From Hurricane Maria so Different?
- Healthcare investors weigh bets as election risks loom
- Trump Plan to Lower Drug Prices Could Increase Costs for Some Patients
- Four More People Die from Tainted Romaine Lettuce
- Healthcare price transparency in U.S. not improved in recent years
- Technology companies could soon drive down health care costs, says Mary Meeker
- Sergeant Sues Defense Dept. Over ‘Outdated’ H.I.V Policies
- ‘They Charged My Brother’
- NYTIMES ‘Fact Check of the Day’: Trump Oversells New ‘Right to Try’ Law
- After Years of Trying, Virginia Finally Will Expand Medicaid
- S. Struggles to Stop Smuggling of Mail-Order Opioids
- They Let Their 15-Year-Old Son Smoke Pot to Stop His Seizures. Georgia Took Him Away.
- Supreme Court Allows Arkansas Abortion Restrictions to Stand
- Origins of an Epidemic: Purdue Pharma Knew Its Opioids Were Widely Abused